The Best Swimming Holes Near Wimberley

This is the swimming hole people picture when they think of Wimberley, a green run of Cypress Creek under old bald cypress trees with rope swings hung off the branches. The City of Wimberley runs it, and the swim area works on reservations rather than a gate line. When swim season opens on May 1, half day passes go on sale online for either the 9am to 1pm block or the 2pm to 6pm block, and they run through Labor Day.

For 2026 the city listed half day passes at $15 for adults, $10 for youths, and $10 for seniors and military, with a $6 rate for Wimberley residents who do not hold a season pass. Season passes were $175 for adults 13 to 59, $150 for youths 4 to 12, and $125 for seniors 60 and up and military, and they went on sale March 1 for residents and April 1 for everyone else. Reservations cover the swim area only. The trails, playscape, basketball and sand volleyball courts, amphitheater and picnic areas are free and open with no booking, including outside swim season.

Krause Springs is two swimming experiences on one property. There is a built pool, roughly 70 feet by 20 feet, fed by springs that hold it near 70 degrees, and below it a natural swimming area in a grotto where water falls over the ledge and cypress trees lean out over the pool. The 115 acre property contains 32 springs, which drain toward Lake Travis, and there is a butterfly garden near the entrance and tent and RV camping on site.

The Krause family has run it since 1955 and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. There are no reservations for day use, so it is first come and first served, and it closes when the lot fills on hot weekends. Published day rates sit around $10 for adults and roughly $6 for children, but the numbers move and sources do not agree, so treat the gate as the authority. Bring cash. The gate has long preferred it.

This is the easiest good swim near Wimberley if you have small kids. Entry is $5 per person 13 and older and free for 12 and under, the park is open every day of the year, and the Civilian Conservation Corps stone dams hold the Blanco River in a series of flat, slow pools you can walk into rather than jump into. There is a shallow wading area next to Falls Dam that works for toddlers.

The park is small, which is the point and also the catch. It fills. Texas Parks and Wildlife asks day visitors to reserve an entry pass ahead rather than turning up cold, either online or by phone. Kayak and tube rentals run from the park store on a shorter window than the park itself, generally late morning into the early afternoon.

Cypress Falls is the Wimberley swimming hole you can still get into on short notice. It sits on one of the widest stretches of Cypress Creek, attached to The Lodge at Cypress Falls, and it is open to the public for a day rate rather than a booked block. Tubes, kayaks, canoes and paddleboards rent on site by the hour, there is a creekside bar and tavern, and coolers and dogs are both allowed, which is not true of Blue Hole.

Two honest notes. Published day rates differ between listings, running roughly $8 to $10 a head for adults with a lower children's rate, so confirm before you pay. And the hours genuinely change through the year because the property also books private events and weddings, heaviest in spring and fall. Summer is daily and long. Winter and spring are usually weekends only, and a wedding can close it. Call the day you plan to go.

It is the most photographed swimming hole in Central Texas and the one most likely to disappoint you, so plan for both. Travis County requires a reservation every day of the week, and you pay twice, once for the online reservation and again at the entrance. Entry runs $8 per adult 13 to 61, $3 for seniors 62 and older, and free for children 12 and under. The walk down to the pool is a quarter mile of uneven rock.

The part that catches people out is that a reservation buys you entry, not a swim. Water access is closed whenever bacteria levels rise or rain has moved through, and that happens often. The preserve runs a public information line that is re-recorded daily and again when heavy rain changes the status mid day. Call it the morning you go. On a closed water day it is still a spectacular half mile walk, but do not drive out expecting to get wet.

Read the geography before you go, because the falls themselves are not the swimming. Swimming is allowed only in the designated area downstream, between Trammell's Crossing and the youth camping area, where the Pedernales widens and slows into a gravel beach with a gentle entry. The water around the falls upstream is closed to swimming, and the rock there is genuinely dangerous when it is wet.

Entry is $6 per person 13 and older and free for 12 and under. Trammell's Crossing is the put in for tubes, canoes and kayaks, which makes the swimming stretch double as the float stretch. Flow depends entirely on rain in the upper watershed, and the river can rise fast, so the park posts conditions and closes river access when it needs to.

The San Marcos River runs spring fed and close to the same temperature every day of the year, which makes Rio Vista the most reliable cold water on this list. The park's three constructed drops turn a calm river into a short run of rapids that people ride on tubes all summer, and there are flat pools above and below them for swimming without the current.

The access rules changed in 2026. San Marcos began requiring entry passes on summer weekends starting June 20, at $5 per person for visitors 18 and up, with children free. Anyone who lives inside the San Marcos city limits, has a 78666 zip code, or lives inside the San Marcos CISD boundary can get a pass at no charge. Weekdays outside the gated period stay free. City officials have said the gated pilot cut crowding and litter.

Five Mile Dam is the answer to the sentence "everything else needs a reservation and it is already noon." It is free, parking is free, and the low dam on the Blanco River pools the water deep enough to swim above it and shallow enough to wade below. The grounds are split into the Dudley Connaly Johnson and Randall Wade Vetter river parks, with picnic tables, some covered, walking trails and river access for swimmers and non motorized boats.

Ownership has been shifting. Hays County approved the sale of 77.5 acres of the park to the City of San Marcos in December 2024, so signage, hours and management details are worth a check rather than an assumption. What has not changed is that it is the least ceremonial swim in the area and usually the emptiest.

It is on this list because everyone searching for swimming near Wimberley asks about it, and the answer is no. Swimming at Jacob's Well has not been permitted since June 2022, and as of September 2026 Hays County still lists it as cancelled until further notice. That is four summers closed. The cause is flow, not bureaucracy. Drought and heavy pumping from the Trinity Aquifer have repeatedly dropped the spring to zero flow, and it briefly ran hard after heavy rain in July 2026 before receding again.

Go anyway, just not in a swimsuit. The natural area is free, open daily from 8am to 6pm, needs no reservation, and holds about three miles of trail through the karst country that produces the spring in the first place. Standing over a vertical shaft that leads into one of the longest underwater cave systems in Texas is worth the drive on its own.